Magic win lottery, land No. 1 pick in draft
CHICAGO >> The Orlando Magic won the NBA draft lottery Tuesday night and landed the No. 1 overall pick for the first time since they got Dwight Howard in 2004.
It's the fourth time lottery luck struck for the Magic, who won in backto-back years in 1992 and 1993, taking Shaquille O'Neal and then trading the rights to Chris Webber for Penny Hardaway.
Orlando finished with the worst record in the Eastern Conference at 2260 and missed the playoffs for the eighth time in 10 years. But they got a huge win in the lottery, where they had a 14% chance landing the top pick.
“It feels great,” president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman said. “I'm so happy for our fans. They really stuck with us. And nights like this help, where you can really show the fruits of why you go through these phases and these cycles. And hopefully, they're really excited by this.”
Duke's Paolo Banchero, Gonzaga's Chet Holmgren, Purdue's Jaden Ivey and Auburn's Jabari Smith are widely considered the most likely candidates to be taken first. The draft is June 23 in New York.
Oklahoma City got the second pick, followed by Houston and Sacramento. The Kings moved up from the No. 7 spot entering the lottery.
Detroit picks fifth, with Indiana, Portland, New
Orleans and Washington rounding out the top 10. The rest of the lottery results are: New York, Oklahoma City, Charlotte and Cleveland.
The lottery, with 14 ping pong balls numbered 1 through 14 placed into a hopper, sets the first four picks. The remainder of the non-playoff teams go in reverse order of their finish.
Houston, Orlando and Detroit had the best odds of winning the lottery at 14%. All three had young teams that finished at the bottom of the NBA.
The Magic are committed to building through the draft after trading veterans Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon in March 2021 for first-round draft picks in 2023 and 2025.
But they were missing two of the young players they are trying to build around last season with Jonathan Issac and Markelle Fultz recovering from knee injuries.
New Orleans might be one of the biggest winners as the lone playoff team with a lottery pick. The Pelicans got it in the 2019 trade that sent Anthony Davis to the Lakers.
With the Lakers struggling to a 33-49 record, eighth worst in the NBA, that put the Pelicans in position to cash in. They needed the pick to fall in the top-10 in order to keep it, and there was a 99.6% chance of that.
Now, they're in position to add a lottery pick to go with All-Star Brandon Ingram.